Do university rankings matter? A qualitative exploration of institutional selection at three southern Ontario universities

Concern with university rankings have become widespread throughout post-secondary education (PSE), fuelled in part by administrative concerns that demotions down the rank ladder will produce negative institutional outcomes. There is reason to believe, however, that ranking 'effects' may be partially muted in Canadian PSE due to the (1) national system's flatter hierarchical structure and (2) the generally inconsistent findings produced by domestic research on rankings. Through this study, we provide a qualitative analysis of how rankings shaped the institutional selection processes of 90 undergraduate students across three universities in southern Ontario, Canada. Our data indicate that these students rarely consulted ranking publications, relying instead on reputational information available through their informal networks (e.g. peers, family). We theorise that the unique structural characteristics of Canadian PSE minimise the influence of rankings within this jurisdiction, and discuss the practical implications of this finding for both scholars and administrators.